Having just played through an Arena, and getting obliterated by Creeping Death, and having death mark kill off a couple of other troops, it feels very deadly now. How have others fared with/against it?

Death mark needs a 1 turn wait period so it can at least be cleansed. There is a 10% chance that deathmark will kill before it can even be cleansed. The 2 turn wait was too long but a 0 turn wait is way too little. A 1 turn wait would be ideal.

[prediction]
When Death shows up, there is going to be a lot of frustration. If Death gets a cast off, he’ll Death Mark everyone, and even with a prepped Mercy or Herdmaster, there’s a 33% chance one of your troops will die before you have a chance to react.
[/prediction]

Yes but they can be depending on current troop life/armour stats. In my experience burn on hit is more effective than death mark as more often than not the skull damage has weakened the troop enough for burning to kill in one to three turns.

Using creeping death I find the that death mark on the weakest enemy isn’t useful as more often than not they’re dead either from the subsequent skull match because they were the lead troop or killed In the next AOE cast because they were a low health troop in the mid pack to begin with.

I find it more useful in a support capacity in conjunction with mana drain on Succubus.

However, I agree with you that there will be some ‘noise’ when AOE death mark lands. There will be a lot more people experiencing next turn deaths. But in my experience I like how it functions currently.

[prediction]When Death shows up, there is going to be a lot of QQ. If Death gets a cast off, he’ll Death Mark everyone, and even with a prepped Mercy or Herdmaster, there’s a 33% chance one of your troops will die before you have a chance to react.[/prediction]

Except this is actually a problem. There’s already been QQ over devour, which is another instant death mechanic. There was some for archer’s 3rd trait. Death has the potential to cast and kill your entire team (assuming none are impervious) with luck, which isn’t how a strategy game should work, at least not without the ability to counter it. So if they don’t change deathmark to a 1 turn delay, you’re going to be fighting defense teams littered with creeping death and death (horseman) along with w/e mana generators they want to use. It’s not a healthy system without a way to revive units, of which this game has none.

Yes, they do. 10% chance to kill any one troop, therefore 90% chance for that troop to survive. For all 4 troops to survive, that’s .9^4 odds, which works out to 0.6561; therefore there’s a 65% chance that no troop will die, and a 35% chance that at least one will die on the first round (and each round thereafter, assuming no cleanse).

Well, all other status effects roll at least one turn before they can be automatically cleansed; they have a 0% chance to cleanse the first turn, then 10%, 20%, etc. for each following turn. Death Mark can now kill on turn 1, where there’s a 0% chance to naturally cleanse.

Unless I’m gravely mistaken, I was under the belief that natural cleansing begins turn 1.

In that, 10% is the minimum. I do believe I recall some people mentioning a troop curing itself before a status effect ever went off (like burn). Or maybe I’m wrong and everything I know is a lie, I don’t know.